The Future of Hit and Expertise and Pummel in Gag Order.

[Dayon]

I haven't been keeping up to date with MMO-Champion as I usually like to. Schoolwork, other games, blah, but my friend told me that there was news I'd love today, and there was.

First off: Gag Order includes Pummel.

Oh god.

Thank god.

Yes.

The only thing I have to whine about with the removal of Shield Bash is that I'm not using a shield-bashing animation. I can live with my functionality, though.

Also, I've been groaning throughout my raid experience in Cataclysm that as tanks, we don't need hit and expertise rating anymore.

I do not like how there isn't a consequence to not landing my highest-threat moves. At the very least it wasn't a palpable difference if we had high enough Vengeance. In Ghostcrawler's new blog he mentions ways that these stats could be made interesting for Paladins and Warriors.

Personally, I love the idea that we would want our threat stats up again, and that they might even be defensive stats with the right changes. I really hope we see something in development for us to -want- hit and expertise.

So, what do you other Warriors out there think of these changes and ideas?

Also, boo-hiss DPS nerfs.

[Deleted]

I'm the complete opposite, as I've enjoyed the fact that hit and expertise have not been necessary, except in few severe cases. This has allowed me to focus solely on building my defensive stats, which is after all, the corner stone of tanking. We also have quite a few of these stats to begin with, which makes adding the need to balance offensive stats rather annoying. Just consider it, we have stamina, armor, dodge, parry, and block, plus trinkets that we need to switch and play around with on a boss to boss bases, and all which needs to be balanced.

It isn't as simple as it is for quite a few DPS specs; we don't have stat weights nor sims to help us out, and decide what is best for us.

To that affect, I'm pleased that hit rating no longer plays a role for interrupts in 4.1. Hit rating will continue to have a certain value for AoE tanking but it is far from the cap and a rather minor nuisance. This mitigates the troublesome aspect of tanking, which is the constant build up and maintenance of various gear sets. The fact is that many loot systems do not support multiple gear sets, like EPGP or other DKP variants where tanks are forced to spend a lot more points during their gear up than other players.

Parry-hasting, I was pleased to see go as well. It wasn't very prevalent in WotLK anyway but I suppose that made it even more annoying, the need to build not just a hit set but also a set for expertise, so that when you do meet a boss like Halion or Sindy, you don't suddenly get gibbed. Consequently, it seems the bosses with that mechanic, were also bosses that could hit a lot harder than most of the bosses, which means parting with those defensive stats for a little bit of expertise was painful.

I imagine that is what you mean by using threat stats defensive and I really am not crazy about the idea. If threat becomes an issue again (like it very well might) then 4.1 is looking pretty good to me. We might want to use some hit food an 1-2 off pieces to stack a bit of extra hit to AoE doesn't miss, but other than that, expertise will be the threat stat to use. That means one stat in relatively small quantities.

[Deleted]

I personally hope for a positive change for Expertise and Hit as well. Not that I'm looking forward to sacrificing my tanking stats, but I like reliability in all scenarios, including damage.

And capping both Expertise and Hit can result in almost 20% more damage.

[Kolmagorov]

Regarding Pummel and Gag Order: YES OH YES OH YES OH YES I had been holding my breath for this change. I love this too much in 5 mans to do without it.


Regarding Hit and Expertise: They may be ignorable in raids, but much less so in 5 mans. I run with a few different sets. 'Survival', 'Threat', and 'Hit'. Survival is for most raid bosses, Threat is Expertise and Hit capped for 5 mans, and Hit is Hit capped for raid interrupts. My Threat set is incredibly useful on encounters when we have a 20K dps in the group and the encounters don't allow vengeance to stack so nicely. It also allows me to stomp the damage meters on most trash pulls

So, they kinda have a place in the scheme of things. Even if we don't have a ton of valuable tanking stats, they interact in complex and interesting ways. Most of you have seen the parry/dodge/mastery graphs floating around. I don't feel that it is necessary to throw hit and expertise as defensive stats into the mix. But, if they do, at least we'll have some mathy theorycrafting to have fun with.

[Dayon]

DPS classes have to make sure their offensive stats and their hit and expertise stats are where they need to be. I think it should be important for tanks to balance their defensive stats and threat stats in a similar way. If our Shield Slam misses, we should have to worry about that.

But yes, it's nice that interrupt abilities no longer require a hit cap, but that's a nice change just out of convenience's sake.

[Amaranth]

Only time I've really needed to make use of Gag Order in a 5-man is in Vortex Pinnacle, and that just makes the penultimate trash pull a tad easier... I skipped it for Impending Victory (not great, but handy for being H Halfus's 3rd tank).

[Pnad]

all this joy about pummel silence.

as someone who played prot through S6-7, and dabbled with fury/gag order spec early S9, I can say it is no big deal.

The fact that if you pummel on CD ... which sometimes you will be forced to, gag order DR's it self, unless you can go 25 sec (or w/e) with out touching it or Hthrow you will never get a full duration silence.

Granted the 1st one will be nice, in a charge, pummel, throwdown. outside of that it is simply not worth all the talent you give up in fury.

[cTron417]

They should make Misses, Dodges, and Parries give you negative threat if the boss (any mob) is targeting you. That would dramatically increase the value of hit and expertise I think. I mean as a giant ugly dude with a raid of people attacking you, would you continue to focus on the guy that can't hit you?

[Dillybear]

all this joy about pummel silence.

as someone who played prot through S6-7, and dabbled with fury/gag order spec early S9, I can say it is no big deal.

The fact that if you pummel on CD ... which sometimes you will be forced to, gag order DR's it self, unless you can go 25 sec (or w/e) with out touching it or Hthrow you will never get a full duration silence.

Granted the 1st one will be nice, in a charge, pummel, throwdown. outside of that it is simply not worth all the talent you give up in fury.

i think they are talking about prot not for arms or fury...

[Daverid]

About Gag Order, Im extremely glad they are putting the silence effect back in. With it only reducing the CD on Heroic Throw for ahwhile there, i was preparing to find placement for my other 2 talents somewhere else.

I think tanks kind of do need something else to worry about. At the moment everything is just stock standard, Balance Stamina and Mastery>Parry>Dodge>Expertise>Hit.
I think Expertise and Hit becoming avoidance and threat stats for tanks would prove an interesting change, but they could either do it well, or terribly. They could completely screw it up and we would just disregard it, Like haste for Dps Warriors and Enhance shamans (Perhaps other classes but these are the ones that i play).

If it ends up being a disregarded stat like Haste, then we'll just get crap on the forums again and people will get confused and try those stats and they'll be much worse off for it. Personally i think Expertise and Hit stats becoming also some kind of threat stat would be useful for GEARING TANKS, like 333-353 ilvl's ... It would make life in dungeons MUCH easier for them as well as creating avoidance. But then how many of them would realise that there actually avoidance stats if they don't look things up, and how many would then move into raiding thinking they should stack the stats to Cap when numbers show they shouldn't be, It will be a fine line for Blizzard to get right, but if they did it would be very interesting indeed.

[PetersenIII]

The only thing I have to whine about with the removal of Shield Bash is that I'm not using a shield-bashing animation. I can live with my functionality, though.

This is my biggest complaint with the change. I love the shield bash animation and sound very much. =( After all, what's the point in kicking-ass, if you don't look kick-ass while ass-kicking?

[Racetrack]

I didn't like GC's idea of needing hit to ensure that shield wall is up.

My idea (for tanks) would be that each point of Exp also gives half a point of parry and each point of hit also gives half a point of dodge. So instead of being trash stats, ExP and Hit will be reasonably useful because not only do they give you the threat and extra DPS, but now they will also give you a little bit of avoidance too making it more of a choice when you reforge. They don't even have to give parry and dodge, it could just as easily be armor, stam or mastery for example.